The U.S. is supposed to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by the end
of this new year. But despite public opinion polls to the contrary, President
Obama is seeking to leave several thousand Special Forces troops, military trainers,
CIA personnel, "contractors" and surveillance listening posts for
10 more years in Afghanistan until the end of 2024.

The CNN/ORC International survey released Dec. 30 shows that 75% of the American
people oppose keeping any US military troops in Afghanistan after the scheduled
pullout Dec. 31. Indeed, "a majority of Americans would like to see US
troops pull out of Afghanistan before the December 2014 deadline."

The poll’s most important statistic is that "Just 17% of those questioned
say they support the 12-year-long war, down from 52% in December 2008. Opposition
to the conflict now stands at 82%, up from 46% five years ago. CNN Polling Director
Keating Holland suggested the 17% support was the lowest for any US ongoing
war.

A majority of Americans turned against the war against Afghanistan a few years
go, but according to a Associated Press-GFK poll released Dec. 18 – these days
57% say that even attacking and invading Afghanistan in 2001 was probably the
"wrong thing to do."

Clearly, the American people are truly fed up, but do not have a viable electoral
alternative to a continuing military presence in Afghanistan. The era of the
mass antiwar movement, which was supported by the great majority of Democrats,
collapsed when Democrat Obama was elected. Democrats may acknowledge their views
to pollsters but they rarely attend protests against Obama’s Afghan adventure
or drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere.

President Obama is sticking to his original schedule of withdrawing "all
ground troops" by the end of 2014, but the Special Forces, et al., are
not technically "ground troops." His intention to deploy a smaller
but vital military presence is related to larger policy goals connected to the
"pivot" to Asia.

The White House has been bargaining with the Kabul government for years to
keep military forces in Afghanistan for another 10 years. In return the US would
pay multi-billions for the training and upkeep of the Afghan army and police
and help finance the government at great expense until 2024.

It recently seemed an agreement was reached, but President Hamid Karzai says
it cannot be signed until after a new president takes office after elections
in April – a delay that upset the Oval Office.

According to Mara Tchalakov of the Institute for the Study of War: “With deep
divisions in Afghanistan over the right of legal immunity for American soldiers
and contractors, as well as the right to conduct night raids in private Afghan
homes, Karzai is trying to buy time to build political support…. Waiting until
after the election would buy time and leave open the possibility of renegotiating
issues that could prove problematic as the election nears."

At this stage it is not known who will win in April. Two-term Karzai cannot
run for reelection, a blessing as far as the Obama Administration is concerned.
He may be a puppet but he knows how to kick back on his own, especially about
civilian deaths, night house invasions by US troops, and Washington’s efforts
to completely dominate the Kabul government.

The White House has a year to obtain a signed agreement and seems confident
it will do so either before or soon after Karzai steps down, particularly if
the anti-Taliban, pro-U.S. Northern Alliance and friendly political parties
such as the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami, gain more influence.

Obama sought a similar arrangement in Iraq when US troops were set to withdraw
in December 2011, but a deal was rejected in the last months by Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, much to the administration’s chagrin.

In a sense Obama was lucky. If the several thousand American troops he sought
had remained in Iraq they would have become embroiled in the al-Qaeda and jihadist
Sunni uprising against the majority Shi’ite regime led by Maliki. In 2013 alone,
over 7,300 civilians and 1,000 Iraqi security forces – overwhelmingly Shia –
were slaughtered. Most of the deaths were from executions and bomb attacks.

The White House may be extremely worried about closer ties between Shi’ite
Iraq and Iran – an unintended consequence of the US invasion and overthrow of
the secular regime of Saddam Hussein – but it is now even more worried about
Sunni jihadist gains in Iraq, particularly since jihadist elements began to
dominate the rebel fighting in neighboring Syria. The al-Qaeda affiliate ISIS
(Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria) is making significant gains in both
countries.

According to The New York Times Dec. 26, Washington "is quietly rushing
dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help
government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency
that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria."

On Jan. 3 the same newspaper reported: "Radical Sunni militants aligned
with Al Qaeda threatened on Thursday to seize control of Fallujah and Ramadi,
two of the most important cities in Iraq, setting fire to police stations, freeing
prisoners from jail and occupying mosques, as the government rushed troop reinforcements
to the areas."

Afghanistan is especially important to Washington for two main reasons.

The obvious first reason is to have smaller but elite forces and surveillance
facilities in Afghanistan to continue the fighting when necessary to protect
US interests, which include maintaining a powerful influence within the country.
Those interests will become jeopardized if, as some suspect, armed conflict
eventually breaks out among various forces contending for power in Kabul since
the mid-1990s, including, of course, the Taliban, which held power 1996-2001
until the US invasion.

The more understated second reason is that Afghanistan is an extremely important
geopolitical asset for the US, particularly because it is the Pentagon’s only
military base in Central Asia, touching Iran to the west, Pakistan to the east,
China to the northeast and various resource-rich former Soviet republics to
the northwest, as well as Russia to the north.

A Dec. 30 report in Foreign Policy by Louise Arbour noted: "Most countries
in [Central Asia] are governed by aging leaders and have no succession mechanisms
– in itself potentially a recipe for chaos. All have young, alienated populations
and decaying infrastructure… in a corner of the world too long cast as a pawn
in someone else’s game."

At this point a continued presence in Afghanistan dovetails with Washington’s
so-called New Silk Road policy first announced by then Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton two years ago. The objective over time is to sharply increase US economic,
trade and political power in strategic Central and South Asia to strengthen
US global hegemony and to impede China’s development into a regional hegemon.

As the State Department’s Robert O. Blake Jr. put it March 23: "The dynamic
region stretching from Turkey, across the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, to Afghanistan
and the massive South Asian economies, is a region where greater cooperation
and integration can lead to more prosperity, opportunity, and stability.

"But for all of this progress and promise, we’re also clear-eyed about
the challenges. Despite real gains in Afghan stability, we understand the region
is anxious about security challenges. That’s why we continue to expand our cooperation
with Afghanistan and other countries of the region to strengthen border security
and combat transnational threats."

Blake did not define what "security challenges" he had in mind. But
both China and Russia are nearby seeking greater trade and influence in Central
Asia – their adjacent backyard, so to speak – and the White House, at least,
may consider this a security challenge of its own.

20123155966 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fjack-a-smith%2F2014%2F01%2F07%2Fwhy-the-us-wants-to-stay-in-afghanistan%2FWhy+the+US+Wants+To+Stay+In+Afghanistan2014-01-08+06%3A00%3A53Jack+A.+Smithhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012315596 to “Why the US Wants To Stay In Afghanistan”

This, of course, is nothing more than an updated version of the Great Game played out between Britain and Russia during the 19th Century for influence in the region. The British Empire is still alive, but today it is being run out of Washington, not London. The more things change…

The occupation of Afghanistan is about profits for war industries, corporations and banks. It is a perfect example of what Gen. Smedley Butler wrote about in "War is a Racket."

Many years ago, General MacArthur said that any defense secretary (or Secretary of State) who advises the president to fight a land war in Asia should "have his head examined." Like Washington's advice to avoid "entangling alliances" our so called leaders have ignored that hard earned wisdom at great expense in blood and treasure.